You probably did a double take at seeing “Second Life” in the headline. Believe it or not, Second Life is still going strong with 900,000 active monthy users and over $60 million in real cash income in world. But Second Life is still falling b…
Virtual Reality seems to be everywhere these days – commercials, game systems, schools (well, a few at least), etc. Behind the hype are some serious concerns (many of which are covered in this somewhat bleeped language honest trailer for PlayS…
While Virtual Reality is grabbing a lot of the headlines in tech these days, there are other feilds brewing and growing as well. Artificial Intelligence is one area that educators should turn their attention to, for good or for bad. As George …
A few years ago, I made a technology trailer for a grad class. Justin Dellinger of LINK Lab was part of it, and he made a spontaneous joke in the video about how he had to get the prescription Google Glasses so he could teach his class. Little…
Most people probably saw this coming once Google Maps started offering 3-D maps of certain parts of larger cities, but now we have Google Earth VR. Certain select areas of the Earth are offered in virtual realty for HTC Vive users. The Vive is…
When talking to educators about Virtual Reality, the big question I always run into is “how can my learners create their own content?” This is a good question. If we don’t get our learners into the creation process, we are really just creating…
Virtual Reality seems to be everywhere I look now in technology news. Does this mean that VR is about to leap from “cool futuristic idea” to “mainstream tool that most people are familiar with”? We will see. Just in the past week alone: Sony Playstation finally released their long awaited VR headset and suit of games (with reviews not always being that glowing), Occulus Rift released a pair of controllers (that did earn glowing reviews), Walmart started selling a headset/controller combo that turns your smartphone into a VR device for $19.98 (made out of plastic instead of cardboard), and a VR model was used to convict a Nazi War criminal. The real educational potential will be more in allowing learners to design their own experiences in VR, from creating 3-D models that they can then walk around virtually to designing and releasing various games and simulations.
After Pokemon Go came out, I prepared myself for the onslaught of articles pertaining to the application of the game to education. Audrey Watters best summed up my feelings in a singe tweet:
Oh god. Someone has already written the “how Pokemon Go will revolutionize education” article
— Audrey Watters (@audreywatters) July 10, 2016
Regardless, I decided to see if there was any substance to the notion and I started playing on July 27. I planned to play for just five days and finish on the 31st, but life was extremely busy at the time and I kept playing past my self-imposed deadline. Most of the aforementioned articles popped up in July and August (ex: http://www.tcea.org/blog/pokemon-go/, http://www.edutopia.org/discussion/educational-potential-pokemon-go, http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2016/08/03/educators-weigh-learning-value-of-pokemon-go.html and my contribution is definitely late to the game. My post highlights my positive and negative experiences, as well as a few ways that an educator could consider utilizing the app. Here is some more information if you have the inkling!
Happy hunting!
Finding ways to visualize wearable data is sometimes a tough challenge. How exactly do yo visualize physical attributes when the meaning of those numbers are different for each person? Then there are the ethical considerations of what should y…
If you are like me, the first time you used Virtual Reality, you probably ran into one of the more painful problems with VR: you can’t see real life obstacles with a device that blocks your view. While it might seem that mapping an entire room…